As ever, Royal Ascot has delivered on the hype, with sensational performances from Field Of Gold, Ombudsman, Trawlerman and more. However, all good things must come to an end, and this Saturday sees the classiest festival of the year draw to a close.
In keeping with the first four days, Day 5 serves up a treat for punters, with seven excellent contests to sink our teeth into. The pick of the bunch from a class perspective is the most coveted 6f prize of the British season.
First run in 1868 and renamed in honour of our departed monarch in 2023, this fast and furious event offers a huge £1,000,000 in prize money. With such riches and no shortage of prestige on offer, the event invariably attracts a field of international sprinting stars.
With the final field confirmed, we know the identities of the sixteen speedsters set to line up in 2025. But who will come out on top?
Rounding off our Royal Ascot series, we will turn to the trends for assistance. Here, we present the strongest stats and trends from the ten editions of the race between 2015 and 2024 and pick out our best bet for the 2025 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.
Fate of the Favourite
Just two winning favourites came home in front in our sample, handing supporters of the market leader a loss of £3.50 to £1 level stakes. In a tricky race to call, six winners returned a single-figure SP. The four exceptions were US star Undrafted (2015) who scored at 14/1, 33/1 chance Naval Crown (2022), and back-to-back champ Khaadem who won at 14/1 in 2024 and a monstrous 80/1 in 2023.
Going The Distance
As the hottest 6f event of the season, you would expect most winners to boast a previous win at the distance. The results in our sample support this theory. The 2022 champ Naval Crown had only won over 7f and 1m before his success. Every other winner arrived with at least one 6f win to their name.
112+ Rating Preferred
Blue Point (2019) and Dream Of Dreams (2021) topped the ratings in our sample having rocked up at Ascot with a mark of 120. Unsurprisingly, 80/1 shock winner Khaadem was the low man on the totem pole with a rating of 108 in 2023. Overall, the trendline shows a dip from 118 to just under 114. With nine of ten winners rated 112 or above on the day, we will use this as our next key stat.
Top 5 Finish Last Time
Only three winners in our sample also scored on their most recent appearance. However, most had performed respectably last time out. Khaadem was only 13th before successfully defending his crown in 2024, while Hello Youmzain scored on his seasonal return, having finished eighth in the British Champions Sprint Stakes. Every other winner hit the top five on their previous outing.
Group 1 Credentials
Whilst a previous Group 1 win isn’t essential in this contest, most winners had at least one top-level success to their name. All ten had scored at Group 3 level or above, but we will err on the side of selectivity and only award a point for a Group 1 win.
4-5 the Preferred Age Range
The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes is open to runners aged three and older. Due to the vagaries of the horse ageing system, the Southern Hemisphere-born Merchant Navy was listed as a three-year-old in 2018. However, as he would have fallen into the four-year-old bracket had he been born in the Northern Hemisphere, that is where we will file him. Counting Merchant Navy as such brings the percentage of 4-5-year-old winners in our sample up to 70%. Storm Boy falls into the same category as Merchant Navy in 2025.
Betting Recommendations: Commonwealth Champ Up to the Task
Of the 16 who head to post in 2025, the market suggests that Kevin Ryan’s Inisherin and French raider Lazzat are the most likely winners. Turning to our trends, that duo are the only runners to score a perfect 5/5 on our key stats.
Choosing between the pair isn’t easy. Lazzat edges it on ratings and is undoubtedly a seriously talented performer. However, in ten career outings, he has yet to experience anything quicker than good going. That’s not to say he won’t handle it, but when taking a relatively short price, we prefer a proven ability to perform under the likely conditions.
In three runs on good to firm, the form figures of Inisherin read 211, with that runners-up effort coming over 1m on debut. The two 1s, meanwhile, were in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup over this course and distance in 2024 and the Group 2 1895 Duke Of York Clipper Logistics Stakes last time out. It’s a close call, but we will side with the Ryan runner.
- Recommended Win Bet: Inisherin to win @ 4/1 with Betfred
Paul Harrison
Falling in love with racing at a young age, Paul’s passion for sports and betting took him to Salford University, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics with Gambling Studies. Having spent ten years in the employment of a leading bookmaker, Paul opted to go it alone and pursue his dream job as a freelance writer.
